To mark Rotary International’s End Polio Now campaign, which has vaccinated billions of children against polio since 1988, Novus planted purple crocuses in Abbey Park in Leicester in 2016.
As yopu can see from our March 2017 report here https://rotary-leicesternovus.org/news-2017/rotarians-outfoxed-by-squirrels the park’s hungry squirrels enjoyed the bulbs more than human visitors to the park.
But today, a visitor to Abbey Park was spotted photographing the blooming bulbs and she and her son wrer interested to hear why Rotary had planted crocus bulbs in the park… and why they had to be purple!
The reason? — Each time a drop of OPV – Oral Polio Vaccine – is dropped onto the tongue of a child under the age of five, their little finger is marked with purple ink to show that they have received their dose.
Rotarians and other volunteers travel the world to take part in mass immunisation events. In three days in January 2021 in India — now declared free of the crippling and killing disease — more than 110 million under-fives were vaccinated. Since December 2020, nearly 19 million people in the UK have had their first COVID vaccination.
Last edited: 18:30 on Thursday, 25.02.2021
